Originally Posted by
3Cforme
You really need AS F cabin (41" pitch) and VX F (55" pitch) to be radically failing in premiums to Y for your line of reasoning to work. If so, you've discovered how AS/VX can be killed out of SEA/SFO/LAX on 2000+ mile flights - DL/UA/AA/B6 just need to run lie-flat seats on AS routes. This would roll back a full decade of AS' route development.
I guess you've missed out on the part where VX average fare got crushed over the few quarters after mint entered market. Mint efficiencies have made it workable for many market unable to support lie flats, which legacies simply haven't been able to do. Or in the case of DL, they just loose massive amount of money on BOS-SFO trying to sustain a route that's important in winning corporate clients. AA has been experiencing a lot of ff leakage to B6 at MIA due to the mint success. This is not an issue only AS is dealing with.